“BTS have just released a new album and are celebrating their 9th anniversary on 13th June 2022. Rapper, producer, composer and song writer j-hope say down for an interview with Weverse to talk about his thoughts on his personal life, being a member of BTS and his personal projects.

You have been heavily influenced as a member of BTS while progressively changing as an individual artist. What would you like to express with your music or dancing these days?

j-hope: As you know, I often present myself with a sunny demeanor. So I have a strong desire to display a different side of me. I personally challenged myself to do that in my current projects. I wanted to show an extremely dark, raw side.

And why is that?

j-hope: In my time working and living, I figured out the stories I can tell are extremely limited when I only use my natural style or how people see me. I have things I want to say, but I kept feeling like, if I did them in the same style I always have, they wouldn’t come across well. If I was going to convey the things I wanted to say, I would have to be darker. It’s something I’ve never done before, so I was excited to try something new. I was heavily influenced by what my heart was telling me, and that’s why I decided to give it a try.

That makes me think of the way you talk back and forth with the other members on Instagram and tap “like” a lot. Is that a reflection of how much you all need each other?

j-hope: Oh, that. That’s because one of them always just happens to have posted something right before I open Instagram. (laughs) It’s amazing how that works. I’ll open Instagram and someone will have posted exactly three minutes earlier. When I see that, I tap the little heart. (laughs) I have a lot of fun doing that. I think checking out their daily lives there helps me find out things I didn’t already know about how they feel about their own lives.

How far along in your life story do you think you’ve come now?

j-hope: I realized these days that I can’t always be a salmon, fighting against the current. (laughs)

What do you mean?

j-hope: I think a lot about how I should live my life just going with the flow. I make an effort to have a happy life according to what I’ve been given. To be honest, I tried to change a lot of things in 2020 and 2021—the many different things that happened, stemming from the pandemic. But the thing is, when I realized I couldn’t change all those things just by thinking about them, I thought about living according to what has already been given to me. Because I’m going to look for the way that’s right for me anyway. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop. (laughs)

Read full interview